Edward_R_Murrow
Arcane
hotdognights said:I didn't say it was good; I said it was better, and good does not equal better. And believe me, I don't have anymore love for the NWNOC than most other Codex posters.
Alright. I had a debate on this very subject with someone else. It also applied to KOTOR as well. The reason I argued Baldur's Gate 1 had better roleplaying was because the choices had more consequences behind them. First off, being evil could get you in seriously dire straits. Messing your reputation up enough could turn all non-quest related NPCs in civilized areas hostile with some respawning Flaming Fist to boot. This pretty much could mean it's over for most, but you could press on. It would just be damn hard.
And dialogue was somewhat better as well. You heard me right. This is where you think I'm off the deep end.....well I am. My point was that the limited dialogue perks of a high charisma actually rewarded that person. Whereas Neverwinter Nights and KOTOR both had a very nasty feature where there was always a dialogue option that did the exact same thing as the [Wisdom], [Intelligence], or [Persuade] option or those things were cosmetic (think evil monk guy in the first chapter of Neverwinter Nights and how with high wisdom or intelligence you could point out his evil for nothing).
For some examples. In Baldur's Gate there were many quests where the reward was based on charisma. If you had say 12 charisma or less you might get nothing, 13 to 16 something decent, and 17+ you got something good. But if you didn't have the charisma, you didn't get the goody. Whereas in Neverwinter Nights, you could almost always get the same results a character skilled in speech could through a different dialogue option.
Then I also went into the whole thing about computer hacking and repair being based on items as opposed to skill and how any character could hack anything with enough items but that's not really required now.
How often was stealth a viable quest solution as opposed to a means to make stabbing more powerful?
Well....there were tons of places where you could get by a lot if enemies by using stealth. Cloakwood mines being a good example.
Likewise, talking was often a prelude to combat(either being to go beat somebody up or villain exposition).
Yes, but there were many times you could talk your way out of combat.
I don't think there's ever been a worse NPC in an RPG than Aerie
Huh, that's funny. If you didn't control her and they slapped a decent set of AI on her, she could have been one of the best ever (nobody beats Dak'kon though) in my view of things. Just like Myron, I seem to like this character but nobody else does. For one thing, it's a damn nice change to have somebody who isn't a hardened killing machine. It's all you get in RPGs for some reason. Where are the everymen, the average joes, the not-so-ultra-heroic types? And maybe it's just because I've been forced to endure years upon years of the American media, but it's nice to see a female character who isn't either a "tough chick", a "slut", or a "tough slut" (which pretty much describes all female characters in the modern American media). Slap on a set of "cowardly AI" and you would have a pretty well done and believable character. Heck, she isn't that bad already. Better than the freaky pseudo-BDSM shit with Viconia.
Mazzy
No argument here. She was boring and one dimensional. Didn't have any interesting flaw like white supremecist paladin man.
Minsc
eh, I saw him as satire on the "hero and his animal companion" archetype. Funny enough if taken as that, at least to me.
and the turnip guy
Ugh....damn....that guy was just bad. Overly forced humor that wasn't funny.
As already stated, absence is preferable to shitty.
I was talking about how the characters actually do stuff and "make decisions" based on what you do.
Examples, please?
Here goes nothing...
Baldur's Gate 1
-Ragefast and the nymph
-Numerous bandit encounters
-Getting into the bandit camp
-Greywolf and crew
-Crazy captain of the guard
-The fishermen and the priestess
-The dead kid
-Druid encounters in the Cloakwood
I'm missing quite a few, but at least there's a few
Baldur's Gate 2
-Faustian bargain
-Ruling the De'Arnise keep
-Stopping the drow woman from making you her bitch
-The fish in the jar
-The gold rope runaround
I'm missing a ton, but it's been a long time since my last runthrough.
After all that nastiness though, I'll say that even though I'm not a huge fan of his work, David Gaider stands out as a pretty stand-up guy
He's a god guy. Nice to see him in a high up postion in working on Dragon Age.
Well, that was some insta-carpal tunnel right there....